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What a difference a congressional election cycle can make! Two years ago, before the congressional district boundaries had even been finalized, Democratic candidates were off and running in the 2012 elections for three of the four congressional seats Republicans held in Colorado. Only Doug Lamborn, from the reliably Republican 5th Congressional District that is dominated by Colorado Springs, didn’t have an announced challenger.

Oh, to be transported back to a more innocent time, just a few weeks ago, when the greatest problem with the exercise of federal power seemed (merely) to be the Internal Revenue Service’s selective targeting of a handful of political organizations. Compared to what we’ve learned since, the IRS scandal seems a passing trifle.

By Lesley Dahlkemper
The voters of Jefferson County knew it was time to step up for the future of students when they gave a resounding “yes” to ballot measures 3A and 3B last November.
Voters’ generosity ensured that Jeffco Schools would not have to make $45 million in reductions during the 2013-14 school year. These reductions would have resulted in the loss of 600 jobs and the elimination of important programs for our students.

If you took a social studies class in the past 30 years, there’s no way you could avoid knowing chapter and verse about McCarthyism, J. Edgar Hoover’s abuses at the FBI, and President Nixon’s “enemies list.”

The paranoid abuse of government power in the latter half of the last century led to a healthy skepticism of federal leadership, and justifiably so. While corruption itself is nothing new, it became more visible in the television era. Today we rightfully look at those events as low points in American history.

The Colorado legislature adjourned May 8 after completing the work of the first session of the 69th General Assembly. Highly contentious issues and partisan wrangling characterized the session. Democrats controlled the House, the Senate and the governor’s office after a two-year period in which control of the legislature was split, as Republicans controlled the House in 2011 and 2012 by a narrow 33-32 margin.